The Perils of Public Scholarship on Islam after 9/11

Abstract

This paper examines the challenges of public scholarship on religion and Islam in the post-9/11 era. The first section, which focuses on Stephen Prothero’s introduction of Islam in God Is Not One, identifies a worrying trend in public scholarship that (1) confirms policymakers’ suspicions about the danger of religion to U.S. interests and (2) buoys popular stereotypes of Islam as violent and intolerant. The second section reflects on the difficulties of explaining Islam within the constraints of popular and media discourses and includes an exploration of the author’s public scholarship during the 2010 “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy.